Slashdot Mirror
Steaming Heap of Quickies
I've been so busy on the code frenzy that I've been behind on the quickies! Tragic!
First lets get the serious quickies out of the way:
chris
sent us the Atlanta Linux Showcase
Tutorial and Conference program for the 3rd Annual ALS, comming up October 12-16, 1999, in Atlanta Georgia.
Registration is open.
Bl0w0ff noted that The dockapp warehouse has been upgraded and redesigned.
k-rist sent us SimShatner.
Here is a site selling a video history of Atari with interviews with the guys that did Pac-Man and all that early stuff.
Someone sent us a link to another place you don't want to see a BSOD.
Want some Blair Witch Parodies?
irishmikev sent is a
Southpark Parody
and
stairs sent The Blair Family Circus Project.
How about a pair of strange places to put a server?
Gareth Walwyn sent us one in a potted plant and
GFD noted thatLinux Today has a story about a
box that runs in a real Pizza Hut Box.
If strange Linux boxes ain't your bag, someone submitted Apple Fritter which contains strange cases for Apples (Legos, Radios, and more)
Jade wrote in with how to apply for the position of Sith Apprentice.
and rjh pointed us to the iMaul
(seems like a lot of stuff is coming in pairs today)
Evan Vetere noticed that despair.com has new de-motivators.
Matthew McCabe sent us tuxtiles which is taking votes on designs for "Linux Blankets". Since we're mentioning merchandise,
I gotta plug Think Geek which is
the first place I've seen with good stuff. They mailed us a box of freebies, but I actually woulda bought most of the stuff they sent me (mugs with #include <beer.h> and some sweet perl shirts and other cool stuff). Most of the "Geek" sites just sell crap but most of this was actually clever.
We probably should also note that Copyleft finally has the new Slashdot shirts from our contest winners, they look great.
ralphb was the first to say that Time Digital has an article on Slashdot.
I don't mean to nitpick, but that's not a BSOD. The BSOD is a NT term. The picture is a Win 9X screen which appears whenever an application generates an exception, executes illegal code, or commits an access violation. It usually does not bring down the system. Although in this case it is in vxd.dll so it's probably some buggy driver code and will bring down the system.
For those who don't know, a BSOD is specific to NT and is equivalent to a kernel panic on most *nix variants. The NT kernel drops to the console (which is 80x40), prints a header and some debug information followed by a hex dump of the processor state and (I think) the stack. Just like a kernel panic, a BSOD is unrecoverable.
In my four years of experience administering NT boxes, every BSOD I've seen has been caused by NT not liking a particular combination of hardware devices or drivers. When they do appear, they appear regularly until you resolve the conflict either by swapping hardware or updating drivers. I've yet to see an isolated, random BSOD.
It seems like some people who don't have any NT admin experience have heard the term BSOD and interpreted it to mean anytime Windows 3.X/9X/NT prints a blue screen. That's not the original meaning of the term.
I think /. ought to start charging protection money. At least they could offer to upgrade equipment (for a tidy fee) to underpowered sites just before unleashing the hacking hordes of hashdom.
If memory serves me correct, that BSOD picture was shot by none other than our very own Alan Cox.
--
any of you people ever done an install of Enlightenment from source? i did this a couple weeks ago. i can't remember vertabrim what happened, but something that looked an awful lot like this happened during the ./configure:
../configure:
Checking for gtk... yes
Checking for ESD... no
WARNING: Esound library not found. Will compile without sound.
Checking for imlib... yes
Checking for lager_ale in _fridge... no
Checking for any_kind_of_ale in _fridge.. no
WARNING: We were unable to locate any ale in your refrigerator. We suggest you fix this problem immediately.
---
i've seen similar things too in other places.. something, i can't remember what, i think it was windowmanager, displayed during
Checking for life_signs in Kenny... no
Oh my God!! They killed Kenny!! You bastards!!
---
The miracle of open source software.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Yeah, that was from the Ottowa Linux Symposium of 8/15/99. This is the Slashdot story that linked to the collection originally.
rooooar
I got an advanced copy of the Despair Y2K calendar from a friend last week. I am still laughing at the dates they chose to include (over 120 bad, stupid, funny dates in human misery in the past 2000 years). My faves are more recent things like the following:
1) January 1st, 2000 - Largest collective hangover in human history.
2) January 7th, 1943 - Nikola Tesla, inventor of radio, AC power and wireless communication, dies penniless in New York.
3) January 8th, 1992 - President Bush shares dinner with Japanese Prime Minister Kiichi Miyazawa.
4) January 14th, 1990 - Homer Simpson first utters "D'oh!", aiding millions in articulating a precise feeling of self-inflicted stupidity.
5) January 19th, 1983 - Apple introduces the world's first "user-friendly" computer, the 52 lb., $10,000 Lisa.
6) January 25th, 1996 - FDA approves Olestra.
7) February 10th, 1996 - Chess legend Gary Kasparov is defeated by IBM's "Deep Blue" supercomputer.
8) March 9th, 1999 - Al Gore tells CNN, "I took the initiative in creating the Internet". MIT's Dr. Larry Roberts makes a voting decision for the 2000 election
9) April 29th, 1983 - "Kilroy Was Here", a concept album about a rock band's descent into self-parody, is certified platinum.
10) December 9th, 1997 - Stroboscopic effects in TV show "Pokemon" trigger seizures in over 600 Japanese children. Media exacerbates the problem by replaying clips while cover the story.
Funny video game errata, pretty obscure, "E.T." game release for Atari 2600, hastens collapse of the videogame industry. Over 1 million copies end up buried in a New Mexico landfill." and August 8, 1997 - Lord British assassinated while addressing his subjects in Britannia
I know where I am buying 90% of my friends for Christmas now.
Smirkleton